Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Just over 300 pages, story of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror from Madame Roland's memoirs.

"The history of Madame Roland embraces the most interesting events of the French Revolution, that most instructive tragedy which time has yet enacted. There is, perhaps, contained in the memoirs of no other woman so much to invigorate the mind with the desire for high intellectual culture, and so much to animate the spirit heroically to meet all the ills of this eventful life. Notwithstanding her experience of the heaviest temporal calamities, she found, in the opulence of her own intellectual treasures, an unfailing resource. These inward joys peopled her solitude with society, and dispelled even from the dungeon its gloom. I know not where to look for a career more full of suggestive thought."

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

You are twelve and eight years old. Soon you will be grown up. You will leave home and begin your own lives. I have been thinking about that day, wondering what I could do to help you. At last, I have had an idea. The best compass is a thorough understanding of the growth and the experience of the human race. Why should I not write a special history for you?

So I took my faithful Corona and five bottles of ink and a box of matches and a bale of paper and began to work upon the first volume. If all goes well there will be eight more and they will tell you what you ought to know of the last six thousand years.

But before you start to read let me explain what I intend to do.

I am not going to present you with a textbook. Neither will it be a volume of pictures. It will not even be a regular history in the accepted sense of the word.

I shall just take both of you by the hand and together we shall wander forth to explore the intricate wilderness of the bygone ages.

I shall show you mysterious rivers which seem to come from nowhere and which are doomed to reach no ultimate destination.

I shall bring you close to dangerous abysses, hidden carefully beneath a thick overgrowth of pleasant but deceiving romance.

Here and there we shall leave the beaten track to scale a solitary and lonely peak, towering high above the surrounding country.

Unless we are very lucky we shall sometimes lose ourselves in a sudden and dense fog of ignorance.

Wherever we go we must carry our warm cloak of human sympathy and understanding for vast tracts of land will prove to be a sterile desert--swept by icy storms of popular prejudice and personal greed and unless we come well prepared we shall forsake our faith in humanity and that, dear boys, would be the worst thing that could happen to any of us.

I shall not pretend to be an infallible guide. Whenever you have a chance, take counsel with other travelers who have passed along the same route before. Compare their observations with mine and if this leads you to different conclusions, I shall certainly not be angry with you.

I have never preached to you in times gone by.

I am not going to preach to you today.

You know what the world expects of you--that you shall do your share of the common task and shall do it bravely and cheerfully.

If these books can help you, so much the better.

And with all my love I dedicate these histories to you and to the boys and girls who shall keep you company on the voyage through life.

Friday, January 6, 2012

"In preparing this book I have tried to make a representative collection from these different classes of Scottish Folklore, taking, when possible, the stories which are least well known, in the hope that some of them, at least, may be new to the children of this generation.

It may interest some of these children to know that when James IV was a little boy, nearly four hundred years ago, he used to sit on his tutor, Sir David Lindsay's, knee, and listen to some of the same stories that are written here:—to the story of Thomas the Rhymer, of the Red-Etin, and of The Black Bull of Norroway." ~ Elizabeth W. Grierson. Whitchesters, Hawick, N.B.,12th April, 1910.

Sources Of Free Books

All books are in public domain, unless indicated.

Google Book Search books are printable if switched to plain text, or page by page by right clicking on image of page(HTML mode only). *Switch to HTML(bottom of main Google Books Menu page) . **Click on the download button at link(upper right on sidebar) to download entire text in PDF.

*(10/10)This has been disabled. Hopefully the HTML button will come back. Books listed here are still linked in HTML. I have been able to change the end of the web address by hand from Text to HTML.

**(12/10)Google Books removed the PDF download button on the overview "About" book pages! To access a download, click on any page of the book to find the PDF download button in the upper right corner.

Internet Archives indexes several free book resources, has an excellent search engine, fully printable books, and an online flip-book reader with an audio reader. Readable online as plain text or as HTML(like a regular web page).

Rosetta Project groups vintage illustrated children's books by reading level, easy to read format, and has an audio reader. Not in public domain per their format. Read only, books downloadable for small fee.